


measure twice, cut once

by scuttlesworth



Category: Greek and Roman Mythology, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Crack, Death, Fate, Gen, running with scissors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-24
Updated: 2013-06-24
Packaged: 2017-12-16 01:05:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/856002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scuttlesworth/pseuds/scuttlesworth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The women of Sherlock are the Fates. Sherlock is a tangle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	measure twice, cut once

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fresne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fresne/gifts).



> For fresne, who didn't ask for it and doesn't know who I am, because she wrote "Stars in a Phrygian Sky" and turned my idea of what the craziest ideas in fanfic could be inside out and upside down. It's, um, not as good as yours.

Molly turns to glare at Irene, when she arrives at the scene. Irene lifts one arched and perfect brow, lips pursed in a moue. "Don't look at me like that, darling," she says in her light purr. "This is so very much not my fault." Molly still glares, her eyebrows knotted fierce and scowling. 

"Well, it's certainly not mine," she huffs. "I mean, just look -" she waves her hand sharply, and a pigeon falls dead at her feet in a puff of grey feathers. Molly immediately looks sick. "Oh, not now-" 

Irene laughs low, and Molly's face falls as though she were about to cry. 

"Sorry dears," the elderly woman chirps as she comes around the corner. She pauses by the dead bird, bends and puffs a breath at it; the feathers stir. The bird, confused, staggers to its feet. "Shoo," Mrs. Hudson says firmly, and the bird, startled, takes off. It flies crookedly away. Molly looks shame-faced. Irene's lips twitch. 

"Mrs. Hudson," they say in unison, deferring to the older woman with familiar relief. She steps up beside them, and the three look down at the pavement. There's a long-ish pause. 

"Well, what a mess," Mrs. Hudson says eventually. Molly nods miserably. "We'll have to fix it, of course. Can't go leaving this sort of loose end lying about." Irene sniffs and pulls a cigarette case out of her minuscule pocketbook. She tapps out a fag, setting the end between her crimson lips. Mrs. Hudson flutters a hand at the resulting smoke and wrinkles her nose. "Do smoke downwind until it's your turn, dear, we're likely to be here for a while. and you know how I feel about that sort of thing." Irene saunters off to lean in a sinuous curve against the grimy hospital wall, making the whole scene noir simply by her presence. Molly eyes her for a moment before turning back to the pavement. Mrs. Hudson gives the younger woman an encouraging nod; she responds with a tremulous smile. 

Molly fishes a pair of purple latex gloves from her own cavernous bag. It's covered in kittens wearing sweaters playing with yarn. Irene, behind Molly's back, rolls her eyes; without turning, Molly's spine stiffens and her lips thin. Mrs. Hudson sends a narrow look at Irene, who pouts for a moment before yawning with obvious disdain and turning her head to look at the sky. She manages to imbue even that act with a mix of boredom, sarcasm, and sensual lethargy. 

Molly, freed from critical observation, manages to get the gloves on correctly. Her face scrunches with focus as she kneels on the pavement, reaches out to begin picking up the pieces. She scoops blood gently, her touch sucking it back from where it has seeped into the filthy concrete; her fierce focus pulls it free of the dirt and stains. She presses on broken bone until it settles back to what it remembers it once was. There, a rib in a punctured lung; there, a kneecap in bits under the skin. Her fingers squish the flesh and spin the blood out into thin lines. They dance in the grey air, sparkling ruby lace of veins and arteries as they march back into their old empty heart-halls. Her fingers trace the folds of brain, now disarranged upon the pavement. It wrinkles promisingly under her touch. Although it takes time, the sun does not move. the city is not a city; it is silent. The air is still. One pigeon stumbles about on the roof, cooing in a forlorn panic; it has never been alone before, in all its life. The other pigeons are perfect little statues. They don't reply. 

At last, it's done; Molly sighs and pets the silky black hair one last time. Unbends her back and creaks to her feet, knees sore from kneeling so long; Mrs. Hudson offering a supporting arm and smile. Molly accepts both, returning the smile with a tired one of her own. It vanishes when Irene flicks her cigarette away (litterbug, Molly's eyes note, so careless of the chaos she leaves in her wake). Her upper lip curls a bit as she steps back and Irene brushes past her to take her place beside the now-whole body. 

Irene blatantly ignores her. Molly lets Mrs. Hudson draw her back, and they watch. Irene's part is shorter than Molly's, time-wise if there were time to watch. She eyes the body on the ground down the length of her nose, walking a low circle around him with her hands behind her back and her spine straight. Then she bends her knees, lets one hand drop to the pavement for support her as she leans over his chest, lets the other trail over his heart. Down to his stomach. His clothes are all on, buttoned up; there was more physical intimacy in what Molly did, her hands inside him sometimes while she touched all the secret places of the human body, set them to rights. But this, somehow, is less decent, even in public, with the unmoving sun glaring through the clouds overhead. Molly, flushing, looks away. Irene leans over, her eyelids fluttering closed as she whispers into his ear, so close. So soft. Still, you can read those crimson lips. She always says the same thing. "I've got your measure." 

She stands with ease and strides away smirking. Mrs. Hudson nods and steps forward. Her steps are delicate and purposeful, frail with age but as certain as a dancer's. She looks down at the body with her lips pursed for a long moment. Then she draws her brows together, like a nanny beginning a scold, and says in a firm clear voice: "Sherlock Holmes, what is the meaning of this? Get up this very instant." 

His eyes open in blind shock. He gasps in a wheezing, desperate breath, and rolls to his side, blindly scrabbling at the pavement and his chest. The world, so frozen, bursts into a sudden riot of motion and noise. 

Mrs. Hudson steps back, a satisfied smile on her face. Things spring into motion around him, plans he'd laid which nearly fell appart. Blood - not his - from a packet, people rushing forwards. He has the sense to lie still after a moment. It'll all be for nothing if he moves, after all. But his eyes flicker wildly around the scene, searching as long as he dares. 

Molly flinches slightly behind Mrs. Hudson's form as his gaze sweeps over them. "I think he saw us," she worries. 

"Nonsense," Mrs. Hudson says practically. "We're invisible right now, dearie." To prove it, she waggles her fingers at Sherlock's form and calls out a chipper "Yoo-hoo!" 

Sherlock physically twitches, even as John shoves his way forwards. Irene gives Mrs. Hudson a disbelieving look. 

Mrs. Hudson winces, just a little. "Well. Mostly invisible, to most people, most of the time, when we want to be," she corrects. 

John starts calling out for his friend, his voice rough and broken. Molly makes a pained face. Irene widens her eyes in revulsion, and looks at her watch hurriedly. "Oh, look at the time, must be off. Call me when we get back to something interesting." She strides away rapidly, turning a corner that isn't there and vanishing from sight. 

Mrs. Hudson sighs, and pats Molly on the arm. "There, dear, it'll be fine." 

Molly shakes her head. "She's always so cruel." 

Mrs. Hudson blinks. She replies in a gently chiding tone. "It's her nature, love. And she can be kind when it suits her." 

Molly, resigned, picks up her purse and tucks her purple gloves into a side pocket absently. She nods to Mrs. Hudson. "Time for me to be off, too," she says regretfully. "Job to do." Mrs. Hudson nods, pats the younger woman's hand once again, and watches her retreat into the hospital. Off to her morgue to receive the living, this time, instead of the dead. 

With a tut, she heads home herself. She's a lovely new pattern to cut out just waiting on the dining room table. It's full of all sorts of things; heartache, and anger, and lost loves re-united. Delicate thing, those; she's more of an expert on endings, herself. But she does like the ones with fiddly bits.


End file.
